Waiting
by Faelady
Summary: What are Kaoru's thoughts as she waits alone, trapped by Enishi? Surely she believes that Kenshin will come rescue her... Brief ramblings from Kaoru's POV on her relationship with Kenshin and her feelings on Tomoe. Oneshot.


AN: This was written for the weekly challenge in an ML I belong to. The theme for this week was "Scars." I decided to cross post it here. This is set while Kaoru is waiting for Kenshin to come rescue her from Enishi. And this isn't really about _Kenshin's_ scars.

Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin. Nobuhiro Watsuki has that honor—and the royalties that go with it. Lucky him.

Title: Waiting

Pairing: light Kenshin x Kaoru

Theme: Scars

I'm inclined to be cheerful by nature. I know happiness in a large part is determined by your own attitude, so I try to be positive.

But even I despair.

The days here waiting are becoming unbearable. I am accustomed to action, to controlling my own fate. I am not accustomed to waiting placidly, waiting for someone to rescue me. It doesn't sit well with me. The boredom, the dependence, they creep up on me and turn into doubt.

I believe he will come for me. I know Kenshin will rescue me. Most of the time. Most of the time I wait and wish and wonder when I will see him. And some of the time I wonder if he is coming at all.

Will he come for me? I wonder that even more as each day passes, because I know now the truth, the facts behind what I had always sensed—that the deepest wound he ever experienced was in his heart.

His warrior's life can be read plainly on his body, marked out in a map of scars. Some obvious, some in places that only a lover should see, they tell the story of his survival.

The worst of the marks left on him by his warrior's life are not on his body. With each kill, he left a mark on his own heart. Despite his belief that he was doing what needed to be done, he was slowly killing himself inside.

And then she came.

She healed him, showed him another way of life. Showed him how to care for others, how to care for himself. He had long since known how to protect others—with his sword. Caring for others, embracing life instead of just enduring it—she taught him that.

And then she died.

She died betraying him, in a way. I'm sure he doesn't think of it like that, but there you go. Memories of the dead are always colored by the fact that they are of the dead. No one wants to believe ill of someone who can no longer defend herself. After all, it wasn't the accidental betrayal that he remembers now, I'm sure, but rather her accidental death in defense of him who she should have hated.

I would have never known about Tomoe had he not been forced to tell us. He had kept her from me, this person who shaped much of who he is today. So much is hidden behind those violet eyes that seem so open and guileless. So much of his past that I can _know_ but never truly understand. So many things have marked the man I love, shaped him into someone whose depths I will never reach. That inability wounds me deeply.

I can only give him my smile, my comfort, and hope that it is enough. But occasionally, even hope fails.

I knew he had a past deep and mysterious. I didn't know he had a wife—a _lover_, the beginnings of a _family_. Nor did I know that he had destroyed it—destroyed her—with his own hands.

I place no blame on him for that.

What hurts, what I do blame him for, is that he loved before me. Oh, I know that's not rational. No one enters a relationship with a heart free from any wounds. I guess what I really mean is that he loved before me and could not tell me about her until now. That is where the blame lies. I fear that she still owns his soul. That any feelings I have for him and he for me are flickering embers merely reflecting the fire he had with her. What hurts is this jealousy I have no right to feel. Jealousy of a dead woman.

How can anyone live up to that? To having died saving the life of the one you love. To sacrificing your own life on the blade of your fiancee's killer so that he may live. Never mind what came before that. Never mind that the whole mess started out as a quest for revenge—her revenge against him. She died for him, marking him for eternity as hers.

The wire-thin lines on his throat from his duel with Aoshi. The slashes on his back from Soujiro. The burn on his chest from Shishio. The cross on his cheek from Tomoe and her fiancee. In my mind I catalog them all again and wonder.

If he comes for me, what price will he pay? What scars will be added to his body?

When I doubt, I wonder what other secrets my love hides from me. I wonder what portions of his heart belong to me, and what part is closed off forever, untouchable. I wonder how much he will hurt me in the future with his gentle distance.

When I am able to be myself, I know I would rot here forever to keep him safe. I do not wish to see any more wounds added to his body or his soul. When I do not doubt, I know that he loves me and I him, and that somehow we will survive this as we have survived everything else. When I do not doubt, I know that we will leave this place together, and I will devote my life to making his happy—to drawing some of the darkness out of his soul.

After all, any scars, no matter how deep, can fade with time. Can't they?


End file.
